I wouldn't say it's got to "many" yet - I'd expect only a handful of digital projectors (there's currently just one in San Jose). If you read the fine print carefully on all those other 'digital' cinemas you'll find it's really digital sound on a standard projector.
But there _is_ a compelling reason to change - the cost of distribution, storage space, etc. If you look at how much a cinema pays each week for the reels of film, and compare that with how much they'd have to pay for either shipping a box of DVDs or just simply downloading over a fast link a digital projector easily pays for itself over its estimated lifetime. Add to that the fact that the studios, distributors, etc. *want* digital distribution rather than shipping film (they still think that they can come up with a rights management scheme that crackers can't break), and you can expect to see digital rapidly replacing film over the next years. On Fri, Aug 26, 2005 at 05:21:35PM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > Maybe our market here is different, but many of our more than 100 screens > in the area are showing movies digitally. > > One small example: http://www.indiewire.com/biz/biz_050316land.html > > Shel > > > From: "P. J. Alling" > > > > There are hundreds of thousands of movie theaters which still have 35mm > > > projectors. Movies > > > may be shot in digital, but distribution will probably be primarily on > > > film, it would cost a stupendous amount of money to replace those > > > projectors, and as in any business. there would have to be a compelling > > > economic reason to change, which at this point just > > > doesn't exist. >
